Ukraine's Mountain People - Hutsuls

The Hutsuls are an ethnic community in Ukraine, whose remote mountainous territory straddles across today's border with Romania in the Carpathian mountains, the areas of Bukovina and Maramuresh.

Of all Ukrainians, they've been perhaps the least exposed to Moscow's influence – be it political or cultural. As a matter of fact, the Hutsuls lived under the Hapsburgs, then from 1919 their lands were part of the Czechoslovak Republic till WWII.

The Ukrainian photographer Oleksandr Klymenko has documented for years the lives of the Hutsuls – here is a selection of his work with them between 2007-2012.

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Oleksandr Klymenko studied journalism at Kiev State University, has been working as a photo reporter for some of Ukraine's largest papers. In the 1990s he was a staff reporter for the Kiev bureau of "Der Spiegel". At present contributes for "El Pais" and other international publications. Over the last 20 years Olexandr has witnessed UN peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, South Sudan, DR Congo. He is the author of several photo albums, his archive contains thousands of photos.